I totally agree with the above, experience/life force and stats should be affected by npc/trap drain effects, forcing the player to be prepared with a stock of potions to restore any drained stats or drained experience. Where's the fun in playing if you can only get killed? :)

At deeper levels, restoring is not much of an issue, rods of restoration start to drop and the fear is overwith, along with items that hold life, and weapons and artifacts with sustains.

I've played randarts a few times, I like the idea behind it, it's more fun IMO but at the same time you don't always get what you expect from a standart game, so I would rather play without artifacts at all. Constant forms of confusion and chugging potions is aggravating to me, it's not dangerous really either after you carry around about 20 potions of ccw, you end up just healing yourself basicaly, and confusion is gone.

I certainly agree that warriors arent versitile enough, or balanced, in the first 25 levels of the game the kick everybodys but in no time, i can dive from level 10 to level 25 and clear every level, before going back to town, or it gets dangerous. On the other hand from about level 30 onwards they are sitting ducks, CCW potions start becoming less useful means of healing, warrior almost has to play very stealthy.

The only fun that comes with finding artifacts is being able to equip/use items associated with Middle-earth, for example Glamdring or Phial of Galadriel, unique items.

Strongly disagree. I like randarts better - they're complete unknowns, and discovering their abilities is fun.

That said, some of the new ego items in v4 could almost be considered randarts.

Then we have opposite opinions of what an artifact is or should be. To me it's a special (one of a kind) item that in most cases come with an unique name and/or has a legend tied to it. A mighty crossbow of might of the bear (3d8) (+10,+10) is no artifact in my eyes, simply "just" a powerful item.

Many players, mostly newbs, never reach the point where level-ups are few and far between. They die long before that. The change to level-up based stat restoration makes stat drain almost entirely irrelevant to this class of players (which I include myself in, which I'll also go out on a limb and call the majority), and for the first half of the game for anyone.

The stat-restoration process was never the problem, town-scumming was the problem, that and the over arching PoV that the player shouldn't have to deal with any genuine hardship, such as prolonged stat-drain, because such things are "tedious". There is something to be said for tedium. It give you something to (try to) avoid. Ditto that philosophy for ID-by-use and sticky curses.

I'd support a return to the stat-restoration potions, but in lieu of that, how about tweaking the current system so that is doesn't guarantee restoration. Maybe a % chance based on CL, or just restore 1 point of one drained stat upon level-up? Just throwing it out there.

How about if leveling up restored each stat by 1 point? I'd rather not have chance-based things happen when you level up, because it creates the potential for leveling to be disappointing (because you didn't get what you wanted).

I can't remember the last time I saw a rod of restoration. It's one of the most rare rods in the game -- most games you won't find it unless you spend a long, long time in the dungeon (e.g. because you're trying to find and kill every unique).

Maybe sustains should be harder to get?

Rings of bodykeeping, soulkeeping, and amulets of sustenance make it 2 easy to ignore stat draining.

At the cost of losing the use of those slots for other things. Ring slots are way too valuable IMO to dedicate to preventing stat drain, and Sustenance starts showing up well after the amulet slot is doing similarly valuable things for you.

Use swaps. It becomes easy when you have space in inventory for swap rings.